


Scary Chihuahua

by fragilecapricornpanic



Series: Ben and Klaus [14]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves Friendship, Ben Hargreeves Deserves Better, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Humor, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Light Angst, Mentioned Number Five | The Boy, One Shot, One Shot Collection, POV Alternating, Pre-Canon, Protective Ben Hargreeves, Soft Luther Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilecapricornpanic/pseuds/fragilecapricornpanic
Summary: “Just get up, you promised me you’d try to conjure Five.” That was a complete lie from Ben, Klaus had promised no such thing. But he’d been too off his face yesterday to possibly remember any conversations that they’d had. That needed to be taken advantage of. Ben really wanted to know if Five was still alive, it had been over a year since they’d last checked.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: Ben and Klaus [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944970
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Scary Chihuahua

**Author's Note:**

> No Five in this but there’s lowkey Delores lol

Startling awake, Klaus already knew what Ben was going to say. What he said most days, and had done since he was conjured. “You talk in your sleep, you know that?” Was he going to keep saying that phrase until Klaus was dead too? That was reason enough to turn to drugs.

“You wouldn’t hear me talking if you didn’t watch me sleep like a little pervert!” Klaus grabbed a shirt purely to throw it through Ben. It would scare the shit out of Klaus one of these days if something actually landed on top of his brother rather than phasing through. He could throw a sheet over him, like a ghost Halloween costume. Aw, that was such a fun idea! It was a shame that wasn’t possible.

Shuddering at the shirt flying through him, Ben really wished he could throw something at Klaus as revenge. Like a goddamn brick. He was just scared of Klaus dying in his sleep when he was so drugged up, which Ben had told him countless times. “If either of us is the pervert, it’s not m- you know what, I’m not getting into this bullshit.” Ben shook his head, fed up of meaningless quarrelling matches. Ben was the only one who would be forever seventeen, but anyone would think Klaus were in that position too with how he acted every day.

“Just get up, you promised me you’d try to conjure Five.” That was a complete lie, Klaus had promised no such thing. But he’d been too off his face yesterday to possibly remember any conversations that they’d had. That needed to be taken advantage of. Ben really wanted to know if Five was still alive, it had been over a year since they’d last checked.

“Move, I don’t wanna...” Klaus grimaced, gesturing towards his shirt that was underneath his brother’s dead crotch. Ben immediately shot up from his seat, letting his book evaporate into thin air. It was always cool when he did that with his nerdy book, but technically it was Klaus doing it so he was the one who deserved praise. “I didn’t promise anything, Benjamin.” Klaus mumbled through a yawn, unfortunately having to put a shirt on. Calling Ben Benjamin always got him all pissy, which was great. Klaus was tired of trying to conjure that scary little boy. Five was clearly living it up in the future somewhere, being an asshole like usual.

This was exactly the moment where Ben would start an argument about not being called Benjamin, but he wanted to stay mature. Having the moral high ground over Klaus was all Ben had, though it wasn’t hard to achieve that. Almost anyone could claim moral superiority over Klaus. “You wrote it on your hand.” Ben pointed to the scrawling he’d deceptively talked Klaus into writing last night. It was alarming how easily swayed his brother was when he was that high, it gave Ben anxiety. Like so much of Klaus’ life. His brother reluctantly looked down at his hand and whimpered, perfectly displaying the aforementioned teenage mentality he still maintained.

Conjuring people always petrified Klaus, he didn’t want to do it again. Particularly not for Five, he’d just bully Klaus. Could a ghost spatial jump? Christ, that would be unbearable. Even if his power didn’t work, Five alone would be unbearable. What if he never left like Ben? Just imagining that made Klaus need to pop more pills. “Anyone could have written that!” Klaus huffed, trying to rub the ink off his hand, as if that would make Ben forget the note ever existed. For a moment he almost blamed this writing on Ben, before realising his brother couldn’t hold a pen. It was probably still his doing somehow. Being reminded of his dormant power always put Klaus in a terrible mood, he made a great effort to forget that curse existed.

“Why the hell would anyone but you write that?!” Ben rolled his eyes when **GOODBYE** was thrown in his face. He wasn’t going to give up bugging Klaus about this, he wanted a friend in death. Hopefully Five wasn’t dead, but if he was already deceased, Ben would be thrilled to have his company. They’d always been close as kids, as close as Five allowed anyone to get. Ben would read whilst Five would work on his math, something that Diego and Klaus used to tease them for. Morons. Although things didn’t turn out well for those two, they still kind of got the last laugh since Ben and Five were the ones who ended up gone.

—

Acting like Ben wasn’t there incessantly pestering him, Klaus was considering finding someone to sleep with purely to get time away from his brother. To be honest, Klaus never really needed an excuse to do that. “I’ll buy heroin if you don’t shut up!” Klaus snapped at Ben, forgetting he was in a public area. Nobody else being able to hear Ben’s grating nagging was maddening, they had no idea how blessed they were. Promising to buy heroin always made Ben quickly pause his nagging. “Heroin!” Klaus yelled at Ben when he still continued making persuasive comments about Five. That made Ben close his mouth, thank Christ. The more Klaus said heroin, the more he wanted to actually buy it. Goddamn Ben, it was always his fault.

“Don’t you wanna be Four, Five, and Six again?” Ben tentatively whispered, nervous about Klaus following through with his threat. They’d hung around together quite a lot as children. They’d all had a tendency to stick together in similar packs of numbers. The only exception obviously being Luther and Diego. Whilst Klaus, Five, and Ben had been a frequent group, the real trio had been Five, Ben, and Vanya. The last numbers. Once Five went missing, that naturally put Ben and Klaus together more... which sadly meant Vanya became more isolated. Ben still felt guilty for how left out she’d been in their teenage years. 

“No, because you’ll form a nerd alliance and belittle me until the day I die!” Klaus shout-whispered, aware he was going to get kicked out of this department store if he kept shouting. Particularly to _”himself”_ , and about the indescribably tempting heroin. He had nowhere else to go today and it was pretty cold, which was pathetic but the truth. Staring at the mannequins, Klaus was unimpressed by their outfits. Who dressed them, a business woman from 1985? Ben clicked in his face, signifying Klaus had zoned out. Clearly Ben hadn’t realised Klaus was purposefully thinking about anything but Ben’s whining.

He and Five definitely would do that, Ben had to agree. That was even more reason to conjure him though! “Before you conjured me, I was all alone and suffering...” that wasn’t at all true, but Klaus wouldn’t know the difference. He ludicrously knew almost nothing about the afterlife or his own power. Ben could probably tell him anything and Klaus would buy it. Like how Ben used to deviously imply he could read Klaus’ mind, just to mess with him. That had been perfection, it was a shame his brother had realised it was a lie. “Think about poor Five... dead, and with nobody by his side...” Ben mournfully murmured, sneakily looking at Klaus from the corner of his eye. This technique seemed to be working, as an expression of guilt was present on Klaus’ face - though he seemed displeased to be feeling that emotion.

—

Breaking into Five’s old room, Klaus still wasn’t keen on conjuring the kid. If he was dead, it was likely he wasn’t dead yet. It was probably decades upon decades in the future. Could Klaus even conjure someone who’d yet to die in this timeline? Could Klaus even conjure _anyone_ this high? “It’s not gonna work, I’m high!” Klaus sulkily whispered, sounding like a moody adolescent.

“You were high when you conjured me!” Ben watched Klaus snooping around Five’s former room, assuming he’d just came here to steal something. There was no logical reason to need to have access to Five’s possessions to conjure him. He’d never needed to do that as kids.

Hissing at Ben because he had absolutely no verbal counter argument, Klaus was irritated by his brother’s use of objective facts. Opening the closet and seeing the row of tiny school uniforms, Klaus wondered if he could successfully pawn a set. “He was like one of those little chihuahuas, they’re cute but you know they’re always a second away from biting you...” Klaus thoughtfully murmured, closing the closet door. It would look too suspicious if he tried to sell those, dad would surely end up finding out. Seeing Ben’s persuasive pout, Klaus made his hands into fists. There was no way he was genuinley going to attempt channeling his power, but Ben would have no idea.

How did Klaus still think Ben couldn’t tell when he was bullshitting after all these years together? “You’re so full of shit!” Ben moaned, defiantly flopping back onto Five’s bed. He wasn’t going to leave this place until Klaus actually tried, and Klaus likely wasn’t going to leave without Ben since that made him painfully lonely. And stupid.

“Do you wanna be trapped with the scary chihuahua forever and ever?!” Klaus cried out, cringing when he realised how loud that had been. At least Five’s room was weirdly upstairs, there wasn’t much likelihood anyone had heard him. Pogo was always too polite to outright accuse Klaus of anything anyway, that’s if he could even limp up these stairs. It would be worrying if mom heard though, Klaus always had a slight fear of her turning all Robocop on him.

“I’d rather be with the chihuahua than the...” Ben threw his hand around, struggling to come up with a relevant insult to hurl at Klaus. Goddamn it, Five would be able to come up with a ruthless affront in half a second, this was why he was needed. “...the...”

“The what, Benjamin?! The what?!” Klaus triumphantly exclaimed, giving up on being quiet. If Luther kicked him out, he kicked him out. That would be no great loss, at least then he’d have an excuse not to conjure Five.

Poking his head out of his bedroom door, Luther wearily sighed when he heard it was Klaus yelling. Tired of dealing with him, Luther decided to just pretend he hadn’t heard his brother being in the academy. As long as he didn’t knock down any walls again, Luther had difficulty caring what he did. Especially since it was cold outside.

“My name isn’t _Benj-_ this is why I want Five! You’re an asshole!” Ben wanted to pull the pillow over his face to scream into, but he was incapable of touching it. If he could, there would be a definite desire to put it over Klaus’ face too, for a wildly different reason.

Intentionally sitting on Ben’s dead legs, Klaus turned to passive-aggressively smile at his brother. “So let me get this straight...” Klaus condescendingly began, struggling not to make a gay joke. It wasn’t the right time. “Because I’m an asshole, you want me to conjure you the world’s largest asshole?” That wording was hilarious, but once again it wasn’t the moment for laughter. He had to squash this beef with Ben. Every time Ben mentioned Five, Klaus grew closer to vindictively sticking a needle in his arm.

Shuffling his legs away from Klaus, Ben was passionately detesting being a ghost. “It was endearing on Five!” Ben whined, much preferring Five’s arrogance to Klaus’. It was unlikely that Five would be all that mean to Ben, but he’d certainly be mean to Klaus. That was half the reason Ben wanted him as a ghost to begin with. Ben needed a stern reinforcement in the fight against Klaus’ slew of turbulent tendencies. 

“It’s endearing on _me_ , you dead prick!” Klaus shuffled further onto the bed to once again be sitting on his brother. Ben hit Klaus in the face, which did nothing but make his nose cold. Why did he still bother doing that? Did he expect it to magically turn into a real punch one day? “Heroin!” Klaus threateningly blurted, kind of just using this situation as an excuse to buy heroin.

Broodily shutting his mouth, Ben pulled his legs up to him so Klaus couldn’t keep sitting on them. He was without a doubt just using this Five drama as a justification for buying heroin. Ben knew exactly how his brother’s brain worked, or more precisely how it didn’t work. “If he’s still as mean, we can just convince him to move on.” Ben pacifistically suggested, wanting to avoid Klaus using heroin but also wanting to be reunited with Five.

“Can we do that? Will that work?” Klaus earnestly whispered, embarrassingly knowing basically nothing about ghosts. Ben nonchalantly nodded, though it seemed like he was claiming the answer was yes just so Klaus would conjure Five... That route did seem to work on movies though, the ghosts always dealt with their unfinished business and then disappeared. “Fine, but _we’re_ the double act-“ Klaus pointed between himself and Ben “-not you guys, you can’t ditch me for him.”

“I’d _never_ ditch you for Five.” Ben profoundly reassured Klaus, even though he certainly would. For a while anyway, until the novelty of having Five wore off and his surly personality became too evident. Klaus ditched Ben for people every day, it would simply be evening out the playing field.

Tensing his hands into fists, Klaus made the effort to conjure Five for real this time. If he popped up, Klaus just knew he’d immediately roast him for his terrible life choices. That was more petrifying than the overwhelming fear of accidentally conjuring an evil spirit. _Please don’t turn blue_ , Klaus begged of his hands. Luckily his power didn’t ignite, not even a smidge. “He’s not dead.” Klaus stopped trying to tap into his power, feeling total nothingness. It was a relief that their brother wasn’t dead... mainly because that meant he couldn’t verbally annihilate Klaus. Could he still use this whole ordeal as an excuse to buy heroin?

“Stop thinking about heroin, you stupid goddamn junkie!” Ben punched through Klaus’ nose again, longing to actually make contact with his face. The lie about reading his mind was practically true anyway, Ben almost always could surmise what he was thinking. A lot of the time it wasn’t pretty. “I wasn’t thinking about heroin, but I definitely am now, _Benjamin!_ ” Klaus taunted, even though he undoubtedly had been yearning for heroin. Why couldn’t Five just be dead too?!

**Author's Note:**

> Also unpopular opinion but I really like Luther )))): ppl don’t talk about how emotionally abused he was, and how traumatic it would’ve been/would still be to have his body altered like that. Anyway I stan Luther and when I was writing these originally I kept trying to find canon compliant ways to involve him lollll


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